Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said a vote to begin debate on a massive highway bill he is pitching is "an important first step" toward solving a transportation funding shortfall that has bedeviled Congress for a decade. "There are lot of tired cliches about not giving up after an initial set back," McConnell said, referencing a failed test vote on Tuesday that placed the Senate's ability to pass a long-term highway bill in doubt. "I won't subject our colleagues to any of those this morning, but I will say that last night's vote represents an important first step toward...

tÂ’s a Guggen-crime. The Upper East Side museum banned a Brooklyn high school for life after its students were deemed too rowdy on a recent visit Â— a move that some call discipline and others discrimination. A group of about 80 kids from Downtown BrooklynÂ’s Science Skills Center HS were kicked out after just 20 minutes after a student allegedly spat off the museumÂ’s swirling rotunda lobby and another threw a penny off its winding walkway. The coin was rumored to have hit a security guard. It was only a handful of troublemakers, but the whole group of ninth- and...

Are art museums welcoming enough to minorities? While it’s probably a question that never occurred to you since, if you are so inclined, you simply pay the admission and enter, it it apparently a pressing issue to some people. One of those people to whom this though has occurred is first lady Michelle Obama. At the opening of the new $420 million Whitney Museum in New York City, the first lady spoke of a “feeling of not belonging” in museums when she was a growing up on the south side of Chicago.

First lady Michelle Obama used a speech Monday that was supposed to be celebrating the opening of a new museum to instead dig deeper the racial divide that’s been growing ever wider during her husband’s presidency. “Museums and concert halls,” she said, just don’t welcome non-white visitors – especially children – the way they welcome whites. Speaking at the new Whitney museum in New York City’s meat packing district last week, Obama said she grew up thinking that museums were not places “for someone who looks like me.”

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on Saturday brought home a 2,700-year-old Persian artifact the US administration gave him as "a special gift" to Iranians, media reports said. "The Americans contacted us on Thursday and said 'we have a gift for you'," Rouhani told reporters upon arrival at the airport in Tehran, the ILNA news agency reported. "They gave it back as a special gift to the Iranian nation." Rouhani was speaking of a 7th century BC silver Persian drinking cup in the shape of a winged Griffin, a legendary creature with the head of an eagle and body of a lion....

(AFP) — At the Maldives’ National Museum, smashed Buddhist statues are testament to the rise of Islamic extremism and Taliban-style intolerance in a country famous as a laid-back holiday destination. On Tuesday, as protesters backed by mutinous police toppled president Mohamed Nasheed, a handful of men stormed the Chinese-built museum and destroyed its display of priceless artifacts from the nation’s pre-Islamic era. “They have effectively erased all evidence of our Buddhist past,” a senior museum official told AFP at the now shuttered building in the capital Male, asking not to be named out of fear for his own safety. “We...

The Newseum is becoming a breaking news-eum this month as it prepares to exhibit artifacts from the protests and news coverage in Ferguson, Mo., while that story continues to unfold. Sharon Shahid, the Newseum’s online managing editor — call her a deadline curator — was on the ground in the simmering St. Louis suburb shortly before the announcement last week that the grand jury would not indict officer Darren Wilson in the fatal shooting of Michael Brown on Aug. 9. Shahid collected a press pass and two rubber pellet balls from a police stun grenade donated by Stephanie Lecci, a...

Fans of singer Olivia Newton-John who are hopelessly devoted to the singer can now catch her live in Las Vegas -- where her new wax figure is on display. The Grammy Award winner did a double-take in Sin City as she stood next to her freshly unveiled Madame Tussauds wax figure....

UNION CITY, Tenn. — The gleaming white building with curved exteriors and a spaceship-like tower emerges from the flat landscape of West Tennessee like something out of science fiction, but it’s not a villain’s lair or superhero’s headquarters. It’s Discovery Park of America, a new museum, education center and tourist attraction that opened last Friday in Union City, Tenn...

ST. LOUIS • One summer day several years ago, the St. Louis Science Center sent a dozen staffers to ride the museum’s two-wheeled Segways in the city’s Fourth of July parade downtown. They waved at the crowd. They handed out fliers. Later, back at the museum, officials estimated 20,000 people saw them in the parade. Then they added the figure to their attendance. It boosted the museum’s visitor tally that day to more than 24,000 from about 4,000. The region’s five tax-supported cultural institutions all count attendance differently. The Missouri History Museum includes the thousands that flock to its summertime...

First Lady Michelle Obama has expanded her anti-obesity campaign to museums, enlisting them to offer “healthy food options,” and change their menus. Mrs. Obama’s “Let’s Move!” initiative is now calling for museums, zoos, gardens, science and technology centers to “join the call to action,” to decrease obesity among children. The first lady is recruiting these institutions to join the “Let’s Move! Museums and Gardens” project because of their power to “influence real and sustained behavior change” on the eating habits of kids. “With their impressive reach and great potential for impact, museums and gardens can launch community efforts to create...

A 400-year-old painting of Christ is at the center of an investigation. The painting is at a museum in Tallahassee, but it's believed to have been stolen from its original owners by Nazi soldiers. The grandchildren of a Jewish man claim the painting was stolen from their grandfather in the 1930s, and now they want it back. The CEO of the museum got a call from the U.S. district attorney about the artwork. “She had information that indicated that it had been alleged that there was a family who claimed to have prior ownership of the painting and it had...

Today, NASA Director Charles Bolden will head up a commemoration of the 30th anniversary of the Space Shuttle's 1st launch. He will also announce where the 4 remaining shuttles will go. As I understand it, Discovery is already spoken for although I can't remember where it's going. The other 3 shuttle, Atlantis, Endeavour, and the test vehicle Enterprise will go to three lucky museums. The announcement will be carried on NASA TV, as well as on TV stations of cities all over the US who are vying for a Shuttle. Although NASA is headed in a direction it has no...

Explore museums from around the world, discover and view hundreds of artworks at incredible zoom levels, and even create and share your own collection of masterpieces. What is the ‘Art Project’? A unique collaboration with some of the world’s most acclaimed art museums to enable people to discover and view more than a thousand artworks online in extraordinary detail. •Explore museums with Street View technology: virtually move around the museum’s galleries, selecting works of art that interest you, navigate though interactive floor plans and learn more about the museum and you explore. •Artwork View: discover featured artworks at high resolution...

In addition to her $877,000 compensation package, Ellen V. Futter, president of the American Museum of Natural History, lives rent free in a $5 million East Side apartment that the museum bought when she came aboard. he Metropolitan Museum of Art houses its director, Thomas P. Campbell, in a $4 million co-op that it owns across Fifth Avenue from the museum. The director of the Museum of Modern Art, Glenn D. Lowry, may have the best deal of all. In addition to the $2 million in salary and benefits he earned last year, he lives in a $6 million condo...

US museums are wasting no time in jostling to showcase the three retiring space shuttles after Atlantis touched down on Earth this week, capping the last scheduled mission of its 25-year career. "No doubt the competition is fierce," said Bill Moore, chief operating officer of the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Florida. His institution is among some 21 others competing to preserve and exhibit the Atlantis, Discovery or Endeavour space shuttles. The trio is being retired after President Barack Obama opted not to fund a successor program, deciding instead to encourage private spacecraft development. NASA has announced it would...

Want the ultimate space collectible? Consider a space shuttle. The orbiters have flown 29 years and have a few miles on them (tens of millions), but soon all three will be up for grabs. Some time this year—right now it looks like September 30—NASA plans to shut down the program. For all the shuttle’s successes in missions like deploying satellites, fixing the Hubble Space Telescope, and building the International Space Station, flying it was always risky. Two orbiters were lost, Challenger in 1986 and Columbia in 2003, killing 14 astronauts. Now NASA says it will donate the ones remaining— Atlantis,...

On Tuesday, June 30, a young woman in what looked like an off-the-shoulder slinky black jumpsuit and tall patent leather heels drifted into a party at the New Museum celebrating "The Generation: Younger Than Jesus," the triennial exhibit featuring 50 international artists under the age of 33 that ended on Sunday, July 5. Other guests thought she was "nice" and "pretty" and "friendly." Then someone pointed out that the peroxide blonde in question, who was also wearing a fringed silver belt and gold hoop earrings, was Meghan McCain, the feisty blogger and daughter of former Republic presidential candidate John McCain....

El Marco's new photo essay exposes how the Denver Art Museum is promoting LSD and radical revolution to today's generation of children. This in-depth study uncovers how a public institution is undermining the city it is supposed to serve. The shocking history of the Psychedelic Movement in San Francisco is juxtaposed with real tragedy in today's recovery community in Denver. http://www.lookingattheleft.com/2009/06/drugs-and-revolution-to-children-at-dam/

I received an e-mail from Sun-ae Evans, a Korean staff member at the Smithsonian who had been my guide during a visit to U.S. libraries and other institutions. "With the Smithsonian extremely busy in preparation for the Lincoln bicentennial, I came to think about Korea. The gun that was used to assassinate president Park Chung-hee, the clothes he wore that day, the bottles of liquor and glasses, and the other miscellaneous items -- are they being well preserved?" What we safeguard now can become important in the way the items related to Lincoln have. Korea is changing very quickly, and...

ATHENS (Reuters Life!) - Greece welcomed home a small fragment of the Parthenon marbles on Wednesday and expressed hope the gesture by the Italian government would prompt Britain to return its own prized collection of Greek sculpture

PENSACOLA NAVAL AIR STATION, Florida (AP) -- Ed Ellis steps across the National Naval Aviation Museum into the aircraft that was Pacific Fleet commander Adm. Chester Nimitz's flying headquarters during World War II. "If this plane could talk," said the 67-year-old retired Navy captain, longing to hear the conversations that happened aboard the vintage PB2Y Coronado. "Nearly every Navy admiral in the Pacific was in here." The Coronado -- the first U.S. plane to land in Tokyo after the war -- is the latest restoration project undertaken by the museum's mostly volunteer staff of hundreds of military retirees. Located at...

Sssr ProductionsChief Vern Jacks, second from left, and his wife, Cora, at the American Museum of Natural History to accept the remains of tribe members. James Estrin/The New York Times“Our Journey Home” took Chief Vern Jacks and his wife, Cora, to the American Museum of Natural History on Monday. A hushed group of people, nearly four dozen strong, slipped into the American Museum of Natural History early Monday, ahead of the crowds. Their cheeks were smeared with rust-colored dye, red and white woven bands encircled their heads, snip... ...these 46 visitors were there for an altogether different purpose: to...

The Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago has a new permanent exhibit of savagery and barbarism, "The Ancient Americas." The ancient Americans themselves are not portrayed as savage or barbarous. (How surprising. Knock me over with a feather.) The savages and barbarians are the museum's curators. They plunder history, ravage archaeology, do violence to intelligence, and lay waste to wisdom, faith, and common sense. At the Field Museum, the bygone aboriginal inhabitants of our hemisphere are shown to be regular folks, the same as you and me, although usually more naked and always more noble. Ancient Americans have attained...

MILWAUKEE - Milwaukee still loves beer. But arts, culture, museums and festivals are on tap, too. That's the image Milwaukee officials are trying to promote in an effort to attract more tourists. "In a sense we have it all," said Dave Fantle, spokesman for Visit Milwaukee, which markets the area. "We have it all in a neat package. It's a matter of getting our arms around that package and promoting it and letting the world know about all the attributes that are here in Milwaukee." New projects in Milwaukee in recent years have included the Midwest Airlines convention center; the...

National Museum of Health and Medicine, Armed Forces Institute of Pathology Garfield lingered on his deathbed for 80 days, attended by doctors who disagreed on his treatment, and by his wife and daughter. Even Alexander Graham Bell tried to help locate the bullet that was lodged in the president. Correction Appended WASHINGTON — Three vertebrae, removed from the body of President James A. Garfield, sit on a stretch of blue satin. A red plastic probe running through them marks the path of his assassin’s bullet, fired on July 2, 1881. The vertebrae form the centerpiece of a new exhibit, commemorating...

ROME, MARCH 23, 2006 (Zenit.org).- Along with spring showers, March has brought a glorious reawakening of Roman art. Two new exhibits opened this week, one at the Vatican Museums and the other in the prestigious Scuderie del Quirinale, the former stables of the papal Quirinal residence, redesigned to hold the city's most important exhibitions. The Vatican Museums, as part of their 500th anniversary celebrations that will last all year, reorganized and reopened their Christian Museum. Complementing the Pio Christian Museum which contains ancient Christian sarcophagi, this collection displays hundreds of small objects found in the catacombs or in Christian sites...

Michael J. Mullen/Scranton Times-Tribune, via Associated PressEverhart Museum of Natural History, Science and Art in Scranton, Pa. Everhart Museum, via Associated Press"Winter in Springs," a drip painting attributed to Jackson Pollock. EAST HAMPTON, N.Y. — Unlike the problem posed in 2003, when a cache of 32 supposed Jackson Pollocks was found in a storage bin on Long Island, this Pollock problem began when a painting attributed to the artist suddenly disappeared. About 2 a.m. on Nov. 18, 2005, "Winter in Springs," a 40-by-32-inch drip painting attributed to Pollock, was stolen from the Everhart Museum of Natural History, Science and...

Visiting an art gallery may be the perfect antidote to stress, according to research. Analysis of 28 City high flyers who spent their lunch break viewing art found their stress levels fell by 45% after 40 minutes at the Guildhall art gallery in London.

LONDON, Sept. 11 - An early reference to Alexander of Macedon is the first hint of where the British Museum is heading in its new exhibition, "Forgotten Empire: The World of Ancient Persia." After all, to Persians then and Iranians now, there was nothing great about the Alexander who crushed the largest empire the world had yet known. Indeed, his burning of Persepolis in 331 B.C. was considered an act of vandalism. But the show, which runs through Jan. 8, goes further, challenging the version of history that ancient Greece, starting with Herodotus, bequeathed to the West. Put simply, in...

The wife and I are heading down to Memphis, TN for a short trip. What else is there to do besides tour Graceland? I heard there was a cool shopping district not far from Graceland. Where is the best barbecue in town and where is the best place to find a safe economical motel that is close by to attractions? Also heading on to Baton Rouge, LA. Where is a decent but economical place to stay in that town? A pool would be a plus. Is everything off of I-10 in BR? I appreciate all your help and responses. TIA....

A government report has found that many of the institution’s buildings have fallen into disrepairWASHINGTON, DC. A report by the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) has found that the Smithsonian Institution requires urgent funding if it is to maintain its 660 buildings and care for the millions of objects, documents, and photographs in its collections over the next decade. The study describes “a broad decline” in the Smithsonian’s aging empire of 18 museums, 10 science centres and zoos, and other facilities, many of which have suffered “structural deterioration” and “chronic leaks” so severe that they have limited access to their...

Microprobe makeover for museum's mummy Selina Mitchell JUNE 28, 2005 THE CSIRO has teamed up with the National Gallery of Victoria to reconstruct and conserve the last resting place of a teenage Egyptian priestess who died around 700BC. The coffin lid, one of the first major Egyptian antiquities to arrive in Australia, is in a fragile state. About 60 per cent of the wood, and even more of its painted surface, are lost, but the original bright colours on the remaining pieces survive under layers of dirt – gallery officials think. "It's good that it's in many pieces, because unlike...

MOSCOW, May 16 - A week ago, on the 60th anniversary of the end of World War II, Chancellor Gerhard Schröder and President Vladimir V. Putin appeared together in Red Square in a symbolic nod to the historical reconciliation between Germany and Russia. But a few blocks away, a museum exhibition showed how the war's dark legacies continue to divide the two countries. Shortly before Victory Day, as it is known here, the State Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts put on display 552 ancient works of art, including Greek bronzes, vases and amphorae, Etruscan figures, fragments of Roman wall paintings...

PHILADELPHIA, Dec. 14 -- One of the nation's richest troves of impressionist and post-impressionist art is moving to downtown Philadelphia now that its trustees have won court permission to leave their hard-to-visit suburban gallery, a legacy of the collection's eccentric founder. Trustees of the Barnes Foundation had argued for two years that they should be allowed to move the collection of Renoirs, Cezannes, Matisses and Picassos because decades of limited attendance and high costs in Lower Merion Township have nearly bankrupted the foundation

The Benevento Missal is to be returned to Italy, as a result of a claim submitted following an investigation by The Art Newspaper. On 23 March the UK’s Spoliation Advisory Panel recommended that the British Library should restitute the 12th century manuscript to Benevento cathedral. This will be the first time that a UK national institution has returned an artwork or manuscript looted during the Nazi era. A change in the law will be required, since the British Library is legally barred from deaccessioning the manuscript. The Art Newspaper heard rumours about the questionable status of the Benevento Missal in...

Many a visitor to New York's Museum of Modern Art has probably thought, "I could do that," but a graffiti artist has gone one step further. A British graffiti artist who goes by the name "Banksy" smuggled in his own picture of a soup can and hung it on a wall, where it stayed for more than three days earlier this month before anybody noticed. The prank was part of a coordinated plan to infiltrate four of New York's top museums on a single day. The largest piece, which he smuggled into the Brooklyn Museum, was an oil painting, 61centimetres...

OAKLAND, Calif., Sept. 5 - Even as the presidential campaign remains steeped in a debate about John Kerry's military service in Vietnam, another highly charged dispute over the Vietnam War has been resolved - albeit imperfectly - between Vietnamese-Americans and a prominent museum here. An exhibit, "What's Going On? California in the Era of Vietnam," opened late last month at the Oakland Museum of California and is scheduled to run through February before traveling to Los Angeles and Chicago. Five years in the making, it tells the wartime story of California during the 1960's and 70's, ripping at wounds among...

What’s THE biggest media myth to come out of the Iraq? War and its messy aftermath? Forget Maureen Dowd’s attempt to trash George W. Bush by altering the president’s words. That kind of "journalism" has become just standard operating procedure at the New York Times. (" All the News Fit to Distort") No, for sheer, long-lasting stamina, we nominate the urban legend about the pillaging of Baghdad’s archaeological museum. Remember how it was supposed to have been emptied by looters? It was THE RAPE OF CIVILIZATION! The anguished comments from distinguished archaeologists sounded more like tabloid headlines. The Death of...

PARIS For almost half a century, Europe overlooked the art treasures that were looted from Jewish homes by the Nazis and were never returned. Then, as mid-20th-century European history resurfaced in the 1990s, the political climate changed. Suddenly, missing art became a moral issue and red-faced governments, museums and auction houses hurriedly promised to make amends. In the glare of publicity, no one wanted to be seen profiting from the Holocaust. Yet, despite all the headlines, relatively little of this looted art has so far been restituted. True, it represents only a small proportion of what the Nazis stole from...

SYDNEY (Reuters) - It was a great legend while it lasted, but DNA testing has finally ended a century-old story of the Hawaiian arrow carved from the bone of British explorer Captain James Cook who died in the Sandwich Islands in 1779. "There is no Cook in the Australian Museum," museum collection manager Jude Philp said on Thursday in announcing the DNA evidence that the arrow was not made from Cook's bone. But that will not stop the museum from continuing to display the arrow in its exhibition, "Uncovered: Treasures of the Australian Museum," which does include a feather cape...

It came from outer space and we don't care, say museums Giles Tremlett in Madrid Saturday January 24, 2004 The Guardian (UK) A home was yesterday being sought for two fragments of rock from outer space which fell to earth in Spain two weeks ago and which museums there have turned down. The meteor fragments were found by a Spanish journalist, Abel Tarilonte, after a flaming ball of rock was seen shooting across the skies of northern and central Spain. Villagers in the mountains of northern Spain reported hearing and feeling explosions after the bright white fireball passed overhead on...

<p>Slavery is one of the thorniest of issues -- and rightly so. Even today, with the War between the States seemingly part of ancient history, many black Americans face insurmountable challenges when they try to trace their family history. It is difficult to move forward when you do not know where you have been. Our troubled school system doesn't help, since it even fails to teach the basic reading and writing skills that children need to advance into high school. Suffice it to say, while public schools are doing a shameful job, the D.C. Lottery is doing its part to impart American history.</p>

CAMP THUNDER, Iraq — Sgt. Kurt Smith is spending his time in Iraq as a full-time medic and part-time historian. Many of the weapons that his unit, the 4th Armored Division’s 3rd Battalion, 16th Field Artillery Regiment, have confiscated belong in museums rather than their arms room, he said. There are two 1917 Webley revolvers, World War I-era British Enfield rifles, World War II-era German Mauser rifles, Russian PPKs and British submachine guns. “I’m a weapons enthusiast,” said Smith. “My dad was a weapons collector and he passed on some weapons to me and my brother.” For the past few...

Egypt demands return of ancient Rosetta StoneJuly 21 2003Egypt is demanding that the 2000-year-old Rosetta Stone be returned to Cairo and has threatened to pursue its claim "aggressively" if the British Museum does not agree to give it back. The stone, which became the key to deciphering Egyptian hieroglyphics, was found by Napoleon's army in 1799 in the Nile delta, but has been in Britain for 200 years. "If the British want to be remembered, if they want to restore their reputation, they should volunteer to return the Rosetta Stone because it is the icon of our Egyptian identity," said...

Egypt demands return of the Rosetta Stone By Charlotte Edwardes and Catherine Milner (Filed: 20/07/2003) Egypt is demanding that the Rosetta Stone, a 2,000-year-old relic and one of the British Museum's most important exhibits, should be returned to Cairo. The stone, which became the key to deciphering ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics, was found by Napoleon's army in 1799 in the Nile delta, but has been in Britain for the past 200 years. It forms the centrepiece of the British Museum's Egyptology collection and is seen by millions of visitors each year. Now, in an echo of the campaign by Athens for...

<p>The National Endowment for the Humanities will be doling out $500,000 in grants to restore Iraq's cultural heritage, the federal agency announced yesterday.</p>
<p>Beginning Aug. 1, the agency will receive proposals for projects that can last for up to two years. Known as "Recovering Iraq's Past," the initiative is geared toward shoring up collections in Iraq's archives, libraries and museums. Projects may start as soon as Jan. 1.</p>

Looters are systematically stripping many of Iraq's 10,000 archaeological sites and should be shot on sight by coalition forces, an expert said yesterday. Gangs of up to 400 people are stealing antiquities for the international market and some sites have been largely destroyed, said Elizabeth Stone, an American archaeology professor. "I would like to see helicopters flying over there shooting bullets so that people know there is a real price to looting this stuff," said Prof Stone, of Stony Brook University, New York. "You have got to kill some people to stop this." Prof Stone, who has been at the...

In the old times there were two suns above the Earth. Unfortunately one got broken to pieces; the pieces dropped into the ocean that now casts bits of "the solar stone" ashore. People call these pieces amber. It is a nice legend about amber; it slightly reminds of the story of creation, loss and restoration of the famous amber chamber in Tsarskoye Selo. One woman from the Russian city of Rostov was one of the first people who believed that the amber chamber could be restored. What is more, she made first considerable contribution into the reconstruction process. In 1976,...